


The Shadow Of Your Smile

by pomidor



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: I'm writing too much fluff these days, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 06:04:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8833243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pomidor/pseuds/pomidor
Summary: Dan gets an interesting e-mail for his Internet Support Group. He thinks it's from one of the fans and isn't aware it may complicate his and Phil's life.





	

Looking back Dan should have been able to figure it out. He knew Phil for years, lived with him, worked together and just generally spend more time than with any other human being ever. They were so close that he sometimes forgot they were completely separate beings, unable to comprehend each other.

However, he’s getting ahead of himself. If you watched his last video you might figure out that something happened. It’s okay, he wanted you to think that way. 

Dan was preparing his new Internet Support Group when he saw the e-mail;

Dear Daniel

I’m going to be thirty soon and I still don’t have anyone. Is that weird?  
What’s worse the guy who lives with me will never make a move,  
even though there is clearly something between us. I’m afraid I’ll be alone  
forever, what should I do?

Yours,  
Lion

Wasn’t that just great? Ah, the phandom, always playing stupid jokes. Someone clearly had too much free time. 

At first Dan decided to just ignore it. His fans were all mildly crazy at best, he shouldn’t even be surprised. Then, he thought; why not? He could give it to the phangirls, they will be thrilled. Dan learned one very important thing early on, always keep your source of income happy and intrigued. 

So he read the message when he was making the video. He chuckled after that, making a look for the camera, giving them a sign that, yes, he knew what they all imagined at the moment. He commented it and included the whole thing in the final edit. 

‘Dear Lion, I don’t think that it’s weird you have no one at your age. I don’t think it’s wrong either. But if you feel bothered by that, I think the answer I’ll give you is pretty obvious. You can’t just wait for something to happen. Make a move-‘ bla bla bla  
Whatever the phandom wants him to say. 

Until the next day everything seemed fine. Only after he entered the kitchen and saw Phil making breakfast, he noticed that the man was acting strange. Phil was always peculiar, but today his awkwardness reached the level he got when they had to do something publicly that he wasn’t sure would work out. He bumped into cardboards and dropped things, but the most telling was that he tried to act like nothing happened. Phil was a great entertainer, but an overeager actor at best. That got Dan thinking.

“Oh my god” Dan realized. Phil raised his arms as though they could protect his ears form Dan’s words. “It was you.”

Phil opened his lips to say something, then closed them, then proceed to just stand in place twitchingly while his face changed color from white to red, and back to pale again. Dan didn’t need other confirmation.

“It was PJ’s idea and we were drunk.” He blurted out, as if to justify himself.

It was at that moment that Daniel realized he read Phil’s drunk love letter to their fans. 

“Oh god. I just basically confirmed phan.” 

Phil loudly put his mug on the table. Dan rarely saw him angry, but he recognized the expression.

“Is that what you’re worried about?” He asked quietly, but there was a certain force behind it.

“Well, I mean, not really. It’s not like they’re gonna find out it was you. As long as I don’t verify it, it’s just a speculation.”

Phil looked even more sour.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Wow, and Dan thought he was the master of passive-agressivness.

Phil started to make his way out of the kitchen, but Dan blocked the exit.

“Are you angry that I posted it?”

“No.”

“Than what-“

“Stop talking to me as Danisnotonfire!”

“What do you mean? I am Danisnotonfire, and I can’t just stop.”

“I know Dan, just-“ He sighted heavily “You say things like ‘confirm phan’ and whatnot. You can’t confirm phan, Dan. Phan doesn’t, and can’t, exist, it’s just something people made up, a ship. Ships don’t happen between people. Even if we, and- and I’m not saying we ever will, but if we did end up together, we wouldn’t be a ship, we would be a couple. I know we practically live in the Internet, but we are not only Amazingphil and Danisnotonfire. And the thing is, you slip into this too easily and I just… I just don’t know what’s happening anymore. I don’t know if you’re really holding my hand or staring at my lips, or if it’s just for the fans. It became too complicated for me. I’m not this good at acting. I can’t show my affection so freely in the videos, pretending I’m just pretending to have feelings for you.”

The silence that engulfed them after that was deafening. Dan felt paralyzed. Phil didn’t look at him, only clenched and unclenched his fists at his sided. 

With a raspy voice Phil said he was going out and Dan let himself be moved out of the way. Dan didn’t try to stop him.

He didn’t think he wanted to stop him. This wasn’t what he expected at all. 

For the rest of the day Dan sat down on the sofa with his laptop rereading the message, and waiting and dreading for Phil to come back. 

He didn’t have an answer. He wasn’t even sure what the question was.

Was he gay?  
Maybe, probably not. It wasn’t that easy.

Was he in love with Phil?  
He loved Phil of course, but… being in love was supposed to be something different. 

These were questions that haunted his mind before, but he always chased them off, telling himself that there was no point in thinking about it. 

Phil and him, they just… they worked as friends. Dan didn’t want to complicate it. He made a barrier for them, one that Phil abided by. He made phan jokes and implications in his videos but he didn’t think Phil would take any of that seriously.

It may have been naïve of him to consider it simply a platonic relationship. Thirty wasn’t really much, not when you looked at it from a wider perspective but a significant number of people were already married and with kids at this age. He didn’t stop to think if Phil wasn’t lonely, because he had him. 

It was no wonder Phil couldn’t always recognize if Dan was making phanservice or really showing his emotions, because Dan wasn’t completely in control of that. Often, only after he did it, he rationalized to himself that it was on purpose, he was just getting into the role, or that fans are blowing things out of proportion again.

He was probably being unfair to Phil without meaning to. Being indecisive was always one of his faults and up to this point Phil allowed it. Dan liked living in this comfortable space of never moving things forward. 

He would probably make his decision too late, when Phil found someone. There would be regret and drama and all the other things Dan was good at. He could just see it. 

Now, he was pushed into a corner. Forced to make a decision. As always he was only postponing it, by thinking about all this, losing time, when he knew from the beginning what that decision would be.

He knew for quite some time now.

So, to stop stalling, he send Phil a message to come home. 

These thirty minutes were possibly the most nervous in his life. It was no wonder that after Phil entered the apartment the only thing Dan managed to do was stand up and freeze immediately. Phil regarded him, somehow less angrily than before, but he still wasn’t his usual sunshiny self.

After a minute of standing and waiting for Dan to say something, Phil sighed and made way to his room.

“Wait!” Dan finally managed to get his voice out.

He started to make his way slowly towards Phil. It was the most embarrassing action, walking in this heavy silence with a plan in mind and no idea if he was actually brave enough to go through with it. It shouldn’t be so hard. His mind screamed at him there was still time to back out, and they could ignore it. Just for the rest of their lives. 

When he was standing in front of Phil, he hesitated once more. This silence was unnatural, it made the movement of his hand obstructed as if he was swimming in honey.

He touched Phil’s cheek. This was the action that broke Phil’s hard expression. Up to this point he looked straight at Dan, but now he looked down, sort of on Dan’s arm and got red blotches all over his skin. At last he looked as embarrassed as Dan felt. 

Keeping his hand there proved to be a bit much, it seemed way too anime-y and weird, so Dan moved his hand to the back of Phil’s neck, and it wasn’t that much better, but at least he couldn’t see it and it wasn’t quite so hot there. He looked at Phil’s lips, because he couldn’t possibly look into his eyes even though he knew the other man wasn’t looking at his face. He adjusted his, a bit sweaty, hand, moving those short black hair slightly and it made Phil shiver. Phil made the strangest kind of bow with his lips and it fascinated Dan. 

He leaned in, so slowly it was almost painful. He was closed in an impossible feeling of wanting to end this quickly and wanting to run away. His heart was beating so loud he was quite sure it was a heart attack. 

Their lips finally touched. Dan couldn’t really describe it, because it lasted a moment and he didn’t feel like it was himself anymore. It felt really weird, but also warm. He felt as if their minds weren’t there anymore, as if their bodies disappeared and they were only points of warmness, melting together, becoming one with the humid air around them. 

He moved back, but only a bit, resting his forehead on Phil’s and keeping his eyes firmly closed. If he opened them, he would return to their living room, he would see Phil, and all that happened would become a reality. 

Of all the ways Phil could react to that, he chuckled. Dan was so shocked he opened his eyes and leaned back, seeing a pair of blue ones staring back at him. Phil was smiling, and it made Dan so happy his heart burned into fucking crumbles.

“What are you laughing at?”

Phil reached with his hand and closed it around Dan’s wrist, but he wasn’t moving Dan’s hand away. 

“What are you doing?” Phil asked, giddy happiness leaking from him.

“I’m making a move. A clear move that you won’t misunderstand.”

“All that thinking and you came up with a peck? You really could have called me sooner if that’s a-“

Dan effectively stopped him from talking. The truth was, he needed that push to really kiss him. Phil made him do the things that he wanted to do, even before they had met, even before he knew what he wanted.

This kiss was different. Phil’s laugh had broken the barrier inside Dan and made him daring enough to ask entrance into Phil’s mouth with his tongue. Phil granted it. Dan didn’t think they were able to kiss like that. It didn’t even feel like a simple kiss anymore, but a form of foreplay. 

Their hands stopped being useless as well. Phil kept one of his on Dan’s face, just beneath his ear and the other was clenched in the side of his shirt. Dan’s hand moved up to cup Phil’s hair and the other he kept on Phil’s lower back. That was the hand he used to turn Phil and back him against the couch. He felt so good about being taller than Phil now. 

However, they didn’t end up on the couch. Phil stopped them.

“Dan, I think that for today-“

“Seriously, Phil? You made me think about you all day and now you’re stopping this?”

“I just… I feel like my heart will explode and I don’t think I can take anymore today.”

Dan didn’t want to stop. Now that he knew what it felt like, he wanted to taste Phil, to touch him and never fucking stop. But he looked at Phil and the tips of his fucking ears were red. A thirty-year old man shouldn’t look so bashful. 

He moved back.

“Fine. I’ll wait.”

“It won’t be long. It just affected me more than I expected, but next time I will be better prepared.”

He kissed Phil’s cute red ear.

“I hope so.”

In the end Phil was a little bit wrong. At the end of the day they were Danisnotonfire and Amazingphil. It was what brought them together and Dan would never forget that.

**Author's Note:**

> So sorry for that. I wrote it in the train, this is my excuse this time.


End file.
